Director: Chris McKay
Distributor: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 93 minutes
Renfield (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Vampire movies and series have been rather popular for several decades, and it’s clear that the blood-sucking monsters will remain an inspiration for many stories to come. We have seen moody sparkling vampires in the Twilight movies while more violent love stories have been explored in shows such as The Vampire Diaries. All in all, there’s quite a bit of wiggle room when it comes to shoehorning vampires into modern stories, and this is exactly the premise of Renfield. Renfield revolves around an unhappy familiar for none other than Count Dracula himself. For the most part, this movie manages to hit the right notes.
Renfield revolves around the titular Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), who has been Dracula’s (Nicolas Cage) familiar for nearly a century now. Initially, Renfield felt as if Dracula was his friend, and that becoming a familiar was a blessing. As time passed, Renfield learned that this was in fact a curse, and now he is submitted to cleaning up after the legendary vampire, but also to go out and find victims for Dracula’s feeding frenzies. Now, however, Renfield wishes to live his own life, away from his violent master, possibly even saving a life or two when venturing out to find his own way. Of course, as you may expect, this turns into a blood-soaked adventure with an eventual clash between the two.
The pacing and flow of Renfield are somewhat what you’d expect. The movie holds very few surprises, and it’s quite easy to predict the eventual outcome of the narrative, but it’s still a rather enjoyable film nonetheless. The humor is mostly on point, and there’s quite a bit of gore in the movie. The latter actually helps sell the overall humorous undertone. There aren’t any real dull moments in the movie, but certain story aspects remain fairly superficial. It would have perhaps been nice if some parts of the film were fleshed out a bit more, but the overall entertaining premise does help push the story forward.
In terms of acting performances, the main cast members truly nail their roles. It feels as if Nicolas Cage went all out when it came to his rendition of the fabled Count Dracula. He puts down an impressive performance, and it’s a shame that the legendary vampire’s backstory wasn’t fleshed out a bit more in this lighthearted yet bloody horror comedy. Nicholas Hoult clearly used his experience from 2013’s Warm Bodies to play another type of immortal-like being, and he does so convincingly. Awkwafina also hogs the spotlight, but she sadly does so with the same demeanor as she does in her other movies. While her performance wasn’t all too bad, it just feels like we have seen it before in pretty much every production she stars in. Ben Schwartz does a decent job portraying one of Renfield’s villains, but his character could have also used a bit more love. Supporting cast members also do a great job, and as a whole, there’s not an actual bad performance in sight.
When buying a Blu-ray copy of Renfield, you’ll get quite a few extras to browse through. You’ll be able to view deleted, extended, and alternate scenes, but also commentaries, how certain effects were handled, and in general how the movie came to life. All in all, most of the content doesn’t bring that much special to the table, but it’s still very nice to have it included. Those who enjoyed the movie will certainly get a lot of special content to prolong a fun movie night.
Conclusion
Renfield is a reasonably entertaining comedy filled with dismemberment, decent action sequences, and Nicolas Cage playing Dracula. The latter might be the thing that really draws you in, as his rendition of Dracula in the modern world was quite funny and interesting, even if the movie’s story was a bit shallow at times. If you’re a fan of gore-filled comedies, then this one might provide you with an evening of entertainment.
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